On the menu: a new track Pretty Girls Make Graves, Benzino beef, and a Busta remix sampler plate
By LEON NEYFAKH | February 14, 2006
There’s nothing like a little MP3 action to whet fans’ appetite for an upcoming album. Here are three reasonably successful examples.
Pretty Girls Make Graves, "Nocturnal House" (mp3). This new track from the forthcoming Elan Vital (now due in April) sounds atmospheric and trudging, like chopped and screwed Gang of Four riffs soaked in reverb that shadows singer Andrea Zollo’s voice. She still wails, but not with the immature urgency we heard from her on their debut three years ago. And the slow, dancy drums bring to mind Joy Division, something early PGMG never did.
Benzino, "We Gonna Win" (RealAudio stream). This bizarre track emerges in the context of big changes at Benzino’s magazine The Source . The boy’s just struggling now: the restraining order he filed against Source trustees so they wouldn’t fire him was thrown out of court. So Zino’s on his own, and planning to put a solo album out in March. If this track’s any indication, regaining control of The Source will be one of his prime topics.
Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Rah Digga, “Touch It (Remix pt. 2)” (Windows stream, Real Audio stream). Busta sounds possessed and strained, barking quick over a sparse, industrial beat. This song’s about some kind of haunted house; Mary J. Blige plays a mummy, I think. Missy frogs in with a great verse. (See the Britney Spears joke on the word “toxic.”) The big news: the long-awaited comeback of Rah Digga, first lady of Busta’s old Flipmode Squad.
Related:
A call to action, Busta Rhymes | Back on My B.S., Saying the unspeakable, More 
- A call to action
The credits of Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes rolled, and I felt two ways.
- Busta Rhymes | Back on My B.S.
Increasingly surrounded by Soulja Boys and Lil Waynes, Busta Rhymes has of late taken on the look of hip-hop's Father Time.
- Saying the unspeakable
Former quarterback turned activist Byron Hurt brings to light gender-stereotyping views in mainstream hip-hop culture and those perpetuating them, in hopes that light will prove cleansing.
- Pretty Girls Make Graves
Is it even possible that this is the same Seattle band who so nicely put a little twist on the Lookout! Records’ pop-punk formula when they debuted way back in ’02 with a woman up front?
- Giant Drag and Pretty Girls Make Graves
Are bass players that hard to come by?
- Crossword: ''For your security''
What is that, a threat?
- Lil Mama
There must be a name for the phenomenon of a child actor aging too quickly on the set of a film, right?
- Everywoman blues
America’s R&B queen brings the pain.
- You Might Know Dawaun Parker Better Than You Think
- Bit players
What do you get when you cross NYU music-technology majors just out of their teens, vintage Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy gear, traditional rock-and-roll instruments, a mysterious, robot-building fellow named José with half a middle finger on one hand, and a shadowy underground network of info-spreading Swedes? No.
- God is dead
One of the biggest mysteries of the video-game marketplace is why the PC seems to lag so far behind consoles as a gaming platform. After all, Windows computers have the kind of market penetration that Sony and Nintendo can only dream of.
- Less
Topics:
Download
, Britney Spears, Celebrity News, Entertainment, More
, Britney Spears, Celebrity News, Entertainment, Music Stars, Internet, Internet Broadcasting, Science and Technology, Technology, Hip-Hop and Rap, Music, Less
